Chapter four had to do with sense and perception. All of the human senses were talked about, including what we see and how we see them. It also mentions how some are unable to do so. Many of us can't imagine what it's like to be blind, although we've probably tried on occasion. If it weren't for Braille, visually impaired people wouldn't be able to read and write. The code, applied to many languages, can be seen in various public places, but few know much more than that. It is read by moving fingers left to right along characters made up of dots. Each character, or cell, is arranged in two columns with six total dots. The number and placement of dots represents a letter, a number, or punctuation. Braille isn't as limiting as one may think, either. Just as people beginning to read or write in English, different shortcuts and symbols can also be learned the longer you do it. According to nfb.org, 90% of blind American children are not taught to read at all. That was a shocking fact to learn for me. It is so important for children born blind to begin reading Braille early on. One research study found that "literacy rates of blind high school students who began their Braille education at an early age are consistent with those of their sighted peers." Hopefully in the future blindness won't hinder people from reaching full potential.
Blog 1: January 2012 Archives
There is no doubt that our cultural environment affects the way we live, the way we feel, and the way think. Most people do not try to find out why we have those feelings and why we think the way we do. Aside from our cultural environment's impact on our thoughts, are our genetic makeups involved in our thought processes? Yes, genetics affect our behavior, and its evidence is all around our natural world, from small insects to humans, and to every living species. For instance, people who have down syndrome tends to be happy at all time, even when they're doing boring jobs like washing dishes. 
Only when things are not "normal" then we see a difference. We "normal" human feel "normal" because at large, we share similar genetic makeups that determine our thoughts. But that doesn't mean we all process our thoughts the same way. Apart from cultural factors that impact our thoughts that are based on the human brains' capability of learning. Genetics can make some people more aggressive than others given the similar cultural environment. Many people fear height, but how many of us were told to fear heights? It is how our brains are programed to have the phobia of height. In evolution, the ones that don't have this traits are more likely to die from falling, therefore after a long time, more and more people have the phobia of heights. Same way ants are programed to respond to different chemical signals. We are programed in a more complicated way, that involves learning, and our natural instance build in our subconscious.
